Mar 23, 2010

Ten Books That Changed My Life

Some bloggers are listing the Ten Books that Influenced Them The Most. That wording doesn't really work for me (ah Proust, Nabokov, Updike, influences all!) so I've changed it to books that had a big impact on me. Here they are, in roughly chronological order.

1. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobeby C S Lewis. The first book I read and reread until I disappeared into it, like Lucy into the back of the wardrobe. I used to time it so that I finished the last page of The Last Battle on Christmas Eve, so that any comedown I had upon reentering reality was immediately compensated for with Christmas presents. Lewis over Tolkein: as revealing in its way as McCartney over Lennon would be.

2. Heart of Darknessby Joseph Conrad. The first book to take over my head in that virulent way that sightly pretentious masterpieces only can when you are a teenager. It sat at the centre of my universe for a long time, everything radiating out from it, like spokes from a hub — the 20th century, Modernism, the possibilities of aesthetic obliquity, narrative self-consciousness, etc. It taught me all about being a literary critic, basically — lessons I would spend twenty years trying to unlearn.

3.A Lover's Discourse by Roland Barthes. My guilty secret: a big French literary theory phase, with a particular weakness for books that blew up pop culture particulars into big shiny generalities like Lichtenstein cartoons. Mythologies is the Ur-Text for any would be pop culture analyst. But this one had a sexier topic and cover. I couldn't get over that someone was attempting to be intellectually rigorous about tenderness. If ever I showed off about owning a book, it was this one.

4. The Shining by Stephen King. King was my first true, purely pleasurable, just-for-myself read. I used to eat up all his stories about evil, talented children whose gifts could be used for good or will, depending, but are destined to be misunderstood by the adult world. No wonder I used to read him so secretively. This is the best of them, complete with a heartbreaking father/son relationship, and a great account of falling off the wagon. The best American novel about alcohol, in my opinion.

5. In Between the Sheets, Ian McEwan. The first book of contemporary literature I can remember picking up and liking. Up until then everything had been Dickens and George Eliot and the rest of them. This meant I could live in the present and buy books in a bookshop like a normal person. Not only that but these guys were alive, right now, writing. It was a like realising you can date brunettes and redheads — a whole world opens up.

6. Albert Speer: His Battle With Truthby Gitty Sereny. The book that boiled my fascination with the Nazis (ongoing throughout my twenties) down to one electrifying showdown: on the one hand Speer, the evasive, vain, intellectual, grandiloqent architect of all that was most glamorous about the Third Reich, and on the other his diminuitive Jewish biographer: grave, persistent, sympathetic, exacting. The first book to teach me that ethics could be as exciting as aesthetics.

6. The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger. A painfully unoriginal choice, I know. I didn't even read it as a teenager. I came to it late — late enough to realise that all the modern American novels I liked had their straws in Salinger's soda. When people say that it speaks to them, they aren't being metaphorical: all the writing goes into not making it sound like writing, and then hides even that effort. An act of perfect ventriloquism.

7.Revolution In The Headby Ian McDonald. The bible of my early thirties; and the best book about a pop band I've ever come across. An obsessive book, by an obsessive, for obsessives, so fond and familiar in all its particulars as to be slightly embarrassing. He knows each Beatle better than they knew themselves and his descriptions of the songs are so good I would reread them again and again, muttering "descending arabesques of G minor arpeggios," as if one day I might be able to slip such phrases into my conversation. It hasn't happened yet.

8. The Life and Death of Peter Sellersby Roger Lewis. Quite simply the saddest book I ever read, written with such intimate, inside-out peeled-skin understanding of its subject you feared slightly for its author. (His latest book, Seasonal Suicide Notes, suggests maybe I was right to worry). I've never gone back to it. It still terrifies the life out of me, but it's an amazing book, bleak, brilliant, maybe the best biography I've ever read.

9.Cold Comfort Farmby Stella Gibbons. A miraculous blend of warmth and detachment — the kind that only great comedy can do. This book came along at just the right time for me, bringing to an end a long and long-suffering period where I read a lot of depressing books about depressing subjects so that I could get depressed on behalf of myself, the subjects of the books and the rest of humanity (who didn't realise they needed me to be depressed for them). Then one day I came up for air and Stella Gibbons was there.

10. Anna Kareninaby Leo Tolstoy. The only book that I've read in adulthood the way I used to read as a child — in one compulsive, don't-want-to-come-up-for-air gallop. It came after a long period in which I read nothing at all, just comic books. It was snowing. Two weeks later I knew one thing for sure: Anna Karenina is better than Spiderman. Which news will come as a big relief for the Tolstoy estate, obviously. Anything you can do to pass it on.

B O O K S

R E V I E W S

"What makes the book worth taking home, however, is the excellent text... by Tom Shone, a film critic worth reading whatever aspect of the film industry he talks about. (His book Blockbuster is a must).... Most critics are at their best when speaking the language of derision but Shone has the precious gift of being carried away in a sensible manner, and of begin celebratory without setting your teeth on edge." — Clive James, Prospect"A must-read for cinephiles of all ages." — Huffington Post

"The real draw here is Shone’s text, which tells the stories behind the pictures with intelligence and grace. It’s that rarest of creatures: a coffee-table book that’s also a helluva good read." — Jason Bailey, Flavorwire

"There’s a danger of drifting into blandness with this picture packed, coffee-table format. Shone is too vigorous a critic not to put up a fight. He calls Gangs “heartbreaking in the way that only missed masterpieces can be: raging, wounded, incomplete, galvanised by sallies of wild invention”. There’s lots of jazzy, thumbnail writing of this kind... Shone on the “rich, strange and unfathomable” Taxi Driver (1976) cuts to the essence of what Scorsese is capable of." — Tim Robey, The Sunday Telegraph

'A beautiful book on the Taxi Driver director's career by former Sunday Times film critic Tom Shone who relishes Scorsese's "energetic winding riffs that mix cinema history and personal reminiscence".' — Kate Muir,The Times

"An admiring but clear-eyed view of the great American filmmaker’s career... Shone gives the book the heft of a smart critical biography... his arguments are always strong and his insights are fresh. The oversized book’s beauty is matched by its brains”— Connecticut Post

BEST MOVIES of 2015

1.American Sniper B+

2. Blackhat B+

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"Is there anyone now writing about movies better than Tom Shone? I think not” — John Heilemann, New York magazine

“Shone is admired on both sides of the Atlantic as a writer with a deep love of the movies and one of the sharpest voices in arts journalism... Witty and wise, all the way from Spielberg to Linklater” — Tim de Lisle, Intelligent Life

"The world's finest film critic"—The Toronto Star

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“The film book of the year.... enthralling... groundbreaking.” — The Daily Telegraph

“Blockbuster is weirdly humane: it prizes entertainment over boredom, and audiences over critics, and yet it’s a work of great critical intelligence” – Nick Hornby, The Believer

“Beautifully written and very funny... I loved it and didn’t want it to end.” – Helen Fielding“[An] impressively learned narrative... approachable and enlightening... Shone evinces an intuitive knowledge of what makes audiences respond... One of those rare film books that walks the fine line between populist tub-thumping and sky-is-falling, Sontag-esque screed.” – Kirkus Reviews

“Exhilarating.... wit, style and a good deal of cheeky scorn for the opinions of bien-pensant liberal intellectuals.” – Phillip French, Times Literary Supplement

“Startlingly original... his ability to sum up an actor or director in one well-turned phrase is reminiscent of Pauline Kael’s... the first and last word on the subject. For anyone interested in film, this book is a must read.” – Toby Young, The Spectator

“A history of caring” – Louis Menand, The New Yorker“Smart, observant… nuanced and original, a conversation between the kid who saw Star Wars a couple dozen times and the adult who's starting to think that a handful might have sufficed.” – Chris Tamarri, The Village Voice

"A sweet and savvy page-turner of a valentine to New York, the strange world of fiction, the pleasures of a tall, full glass and just about everything else that matters" — Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story and Absurdistan

Wicked Woman in February Sight & Sound
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Before I forget... please pick up the February edition of Sight & Sound on stands now where you can read my essay on Russell Rouse's "Wicked Woman." Here's a...